Mediated Worlds Archive

Comics Doc Tape Diary #3

Watched the first really good interview that I probably won't be using much of in the final film. There are a few subjects I spoke with who will end up not quite fitting into the big picture as well as others. I am considering ultimately releasing all, or at least a substantial chunk, of my raw footage online for others to view and play with. That's one way to ensure that the stuff on "the cutting room floor" doesn't end up simply forgotten and unused.

Noticed more mic bobbling, and seemingly more intrusive this time.

Having to defer some tapes as I wait for companion cassettes to be logged. I will likely be taking the next few days off from tape review. Generally, I am torn between wanting to power through the material and taking a more measured approach to ensure that my judgment stays clear. So far I have taken a measured approach looking at two to three interviews a day. With pauses for note taking, a thirty to forty minute interview has been taking about an hour to review.

Comics Doc Tape Diary #2

Today, I encountered the first interview so far that is marred by one of the sound people moving the mic around; bip, bip, bip, bip. Fortunately, this isn't constant and I should be able to cut around the bobbles. I also hit one of the two tapes where the video mode had been shifted accidentally in the bag and went unnoticed until after several minutes had been recorded. At the time, I chose to play out the tape in the incorrect mode, but switched to the proper mode when a new tape was started. That may not have been the best choice. It might have been better to record the whole interview in the wrong mode and then conformed it all later. I won't really know what the effect of this choice will be until I get into editing proper. Finally, on the flaws and mistakes front, I learned that one of the people who worked on the tape logs managed to record over about two minutes of one of the interviews. I don't think I lost anything
valuable, but it was a shock. Am glad that this particular person did not get a chance to do work on the logs in an extensive way.

I've also noticed that my in-person perceptions of the interviews are not always born out on screen. I have found subjects that seemed kind of flat during recording coming across much better on playback. The differences are not dramatic, but enough to be encouraging. Less common is for a dyamic in-person interview to be turned flat in review. This is also encouraging, obviously.

One of the hardest things about this process is listening to my own voice on tape-after-tape.

Comics Doc Tape Diary #1

I started reviewing my interview footage yesterday and I have a few early thoughts on what I've watched.

• Subjects who like to talk are good. You have listen to much more than you will need, but you're also more likely to get good material (I also have to say that some of the less relevant discussion I've heard in these first few tapes is as much a product of the questions I asked as it is a product of subject answers).
• More than before, even, I wish I had had a DP to work with. I undoubtedly would have done more set-ups with individual subjects, and would have ended up catching some little things that slipped by last summer, lack the reflections off of the glasses of one of my better interviews. Having written that, the video generally looks good. Rich, vibrant colors and clear images.
• Sound quality is excellent. Buying a field mixer before the shoot was obviously a good investment, as was the sound workshop I attended at the Northwest Film Center and this little tool.

A summer of film work

With the school year done, I can turn my attention to film projects, starting with my documentary of comic book creators in Portland, Oregon. This also means that this blog will be sparked back to life. I will be posting more of my personal thoughts, frustrations, reflections on the documentary here, leaving the more "official" communications to the doc blog. There will also be other projects to write about as the summer continues.

Short doc on 24-Hour Comics Day online

My filmmaking activities have been curtailed by the day-to-day at the university, but last Friday, 13 February, I screened a short film, "24-Hour Comics Day at Cosmic Monkey", as part of the Oregon 150 commemoration at Western. The short was produced from footage shot for my larger documentary project on the comic book scene in Portland, Oregon (USA). I've inserted the YouTube version below, but better viewing can be found on my lo-fi cinema page at blip.tv.

24-Hour Comics Day at Cosmic Monkey

48 Hour Film now online

"The Decision", the Monmouth Film Collective's 48 Hour Film Project short is now online at blip.tv and on YouTube. I've inserted the YouTube version below. blip offers better viewing, including a Quicktime version (best quality for online viewing, but it will take longer to load).

View in Flash on lo-fi cinema at blip.tv.
View in Quicktime on lo-fi cinema at blip.tv.

The Decision

2008 48 Hour Film Project

Last weekend (August 8-10), version two of the Monmouth Film Collective participated in the Portland, Oregon 48 Hour Film Project. We successfully finished our film and got it in on time (the event ran from 7:00 on Friday to 7:30 on Sunday; we got the film delivered by 7:00).

Our genre was historical fiction, and the Portland elements were:

• Character: Jake or Jane Gravenstein, wellness practioner.
• Line of dialogue: “Okay, I think I got it straight.”
• Prop: jumper cables.

This year's experience was immediately different from last year's in that the genre we drew was both more intimidating and more constraining. Fantasy, the genre we drew in 2007, is nothing but artistic license. Historical fiction comes with more limits, and more of a burden in terms of “getting it right.”

We decided on a 1930s, Great Depression story involving a family, three kids and a dad, looking for a place to stay and falling into the web of a maybe crazy, maybe craven “inventor” claiming to have a magical “healing machine”. I jumped on the idea because I immediately envisioned the family walking along a dusty railway. The writers did much more with the idea, obviously. It was also relatively easier to imagine at least roughly being able to approximate the look and feel of the period.

Naturally, the weather did not really cooperate. It rained over night, and was alternately sunny and cloudy all day on Saturday. Getting the “dust bowl” look and feel was not going to happen, but fortunately it being August, there was a lot of gold and brown in the landscape in any event. In other respects, the constantly changing light was a challenge for the photography, but I think we were able to work around it sufficiently to give us a consistent look when we needed it.

I remember being pretty happy with last year's film. I wouldn't say I was unhappy with this year's, which we titled “The Decision”, but it is more uneven, and there are more things I wish I had done a little different, particularly in editing. Our genre and our story was, ultimately, more ambitious this year. So, whereas last year, the low rent approach that is almost necessitated by the strictures of the event really worked, this year it became a source of frustration. On the other hand, the best moments in the new film are better than those from last year's.

This has nothing to do with the fine work of cast and crew. Our team was a mix of old and new faces, and we worked together well. I think that work is well-represented in the final film. I just can't help feeling that the end work is less than the talents and ambitions of the team.

This year's Monmouth Film Collective was, in addition to myself: Maren Bradley Anderson, David Berrier, Tristan Berrier, Rachel Bridgewater, Anne-Marie Deitering, David Doellinger, Ben Grimes, Jordan Hofer, Jason Kirtland, Bill Madden, Jesse Madden, Mark Madland, Orion Metzner, Chris Olsenius, Emily Plec, Charley Waller, and Rosanne Waller.

Watch last year's film, “DreemRz, Inc.”
See photos from this year.
This year's film coming soon. (It's now here).

Kids these days

As I've alluded to in other posts on the comics documentary, I've cobbled together a crew for the summer from students, recent grads, and Anne-Marie. Mostly, this has been to help with interviews; while you can be a one person crew working with digital media, it isn't the best way to work, at least not for me. However, I've also been asking folks to help with logging tape, an essential, but tedious job.

Logging tape entails providing useful descriptions for every shot on a tape, usually including information like time code, angle, and subject. Getting this done is helpful for a number of reasons. Once you have a tape logged, subsequent viewings can be devoted to evaluating quality and content. A log lets you see at a glance what's on a tape. It makes it possible to fish out specific kinds of footage without having to actually watch an entire tape. It can guide the creation of a batch list for downloading footage. I'm sure that there are people who work without logging their tape, but I can't imagine not doing it, especially not on a project where you're going to be working with hours and hours of material (I generally don't create a tape log for events like this weekend's 48 Hour Film Project, but that's a time issue, and we usually don't have much more than an hour of tape to work with in any event).

I've been asking members of the crew to log tapes, and with some mixed success. Not surprisingly, no one is eager to do this job, but most have been game when asked directly. The main limiter I've discovered is that most don't have access to miniDV cameras, and certainly not to miniDV decks. All but one person has informed me that they only have access to hard drive-based cameras, or everyone they know just uses the video function on their digital still cameras. One person told me that he's never had a miniDV machine, only hard drive based ones.

I have wide control and access to a couple of camcorders from the university, but not enough to keep everyone working simultaneously. I guess that miniDV became outmoded at the consumer level without me really noticing.

Why I wish I had a DP

I've written previously about how budgetary limits have compelled me to be my own director of photography on the comics documentary. This is not an entirely bad thing, it forces me to do work that makes me a better filmmaker, but last week I got a sharp reminder as to why it's preferable to work with a photographer.

My camera, a Panasonic DVX100a, has a set of "scene files" which allows you to use and save different combinations of settings for color, detail, frame rate, etc. I think I've been reliable about checking that the scene file setting is correct before we begin shooting. However, last Friday, for various reasons, things were moving slow and we were behind schedule, and clearly checking the scene file dial simply slipped my mind. When I changed tapes during one of the interviews, I noticed that the dial had moved, which will happen sometimes when I put the camera back in its bag (hence, the need to check). Unfortunately, we weren't in a location that set off any alarm bells about how the image looked on the LCD screen - muted colors, no real dark areas, s stable camera and subject - and it wasn't until I actually saw the dial that I realized what had happened.

I haven't looked at the tape yet, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to smooth out or finesse the differences in footage during editing and post-production without too much trouble. Fortunately, even though I haven't tested this yet, my understanding is that Final Cut Pro makes it relatively easy to work with different kinds of video (here, I'm looking at needing to work with 24PA and 60i). In retrospect, I probably should have kept the "wrong" scene file for the rest of the interview, but my first impulse was to change it back to where it should have been and that's what I did. This will make it easier to integrate the second half with the rest of my footage, but poses a new challenge of how to reconcile the look within the interview.

The lesson here for me is that one of the practical reasons for working with a photographer is that that person will have nothing to worry about except the camera, making it less likely that something like this will happen. But, to tweak a cliche about teaching, you have to work with the production you have, not the one you wish you had.

Main interviews begin

As I posted to the production blog, the interviews for the main part of the documentary began yesterday. Before getting those interviews underway, I set up a Google Group for the crew to facilitate communication and provide a central place for asking questions, working out problems, etc. It is also a way for the crew members to introduce themselves to each other. I'm actually not sure if I'll ever have everyone together on one shoot. Fortunately, one of the advantages of digital technology is its relative simplicity. On Friday, I was able to get the two crew members I was working with, Tanya and Danny, set up for sound and monitoring without any real difficulty. As I've mentioned before, I'm essentially acting as my own DP on this project, but as time goes by, I hope to have at least one other person that I can trust to set up shots and work the camera. In addition to using Google Groups for the production, I've also set up a tape log in a Google Docs spreadsheet, which should make it easier for everyone to complete those assignments and have the documented updated in real time instead of having to track so many different versions of it (I was a little surprised to see that Google Groups and Google Docs are not seamlessly integrated with each other, which means that I can't share documents directly with the group via the group page). Other than all of the driving to Portland this stage of the production will entail, I'm looking forward to the remaining interviews, and to getting more of the crew working together.